Celebration for Two
The radiator’s sputtering and crumbs of birthday cake
fly out from the thrown back sheet and spread out in your wake.
Red wine from toppled glasses forms a little lake
so perhaps staging the party in our bed was a mistake!
Prompt words today are sputter, manage,, mistake.
Word of the Day didn’t publish a word today.
Lover’s Spat.
When I said I didn’t miss you, I admit that I lied.
I didn’t get enough of you. I left unsatisfied.
If you, too, detect a movement in your stone cold heart,
perhaps you could begin with a phone call as a start.
I didn’t mean to say it. You didn’t mean to scream.
I’m willing to atone for it by any means you deem.
Breaking up is hard to do but staying mad is harder.
I spend way too much time in bed, too much time in my larder.
I’m gaining weight and losing hair, burst into tears repeatedly.
I fly off the handle and insult my friends most heatedly.
So I propose our meeting via taxi, boat or plane.
Our last tryst was insufficient. It didn’t heal the pain.
If you’ll come out of hiding, then I will do the same.
If you’ll agree to meet with me, I’ll even take the blame.
You’ll be right and I’ll be wrong. I’ll take the higher road.
The digs that I once took at you will produce the motherlode.
Prompt words for today were taxi, movement, propose and hide.
Over-automation
The multifarious uses of all of her devices
led to manifold laziness and other slothful vices.
She never had to scramble to remember anything.
She only pushed a button and her troubles all took wing.
She had no special training. She eschewed an education,
for Alexa solved all problems with her handy automation—
turning on the TV set and opening the doors,
setting off the cleaning robots, expelling the boors,
reminding of vacations and birthdays and appointments,
disciplining naughty kids for lapses in deportments.
Alexa went to work for her and mapped out all her spreadsheets,
polished all her silverware and ironed out her bedsheets.
There was literally nothing that Alexa couldn’t do.
She cooked her children’s breakfasts and took them to the zoo.
Yet still she was suffused by fatigue and wan and thin.
No one could imagine the stress that she was in.
More and more she wound up with her stomach in a knot.
remembering the uses for devices that she’d got!
Prompt words today are knot, scramble, vacation and multifarious.
Full Makeup
As each wispy object she attaches to her face,
these extraneous objects seem somewhat out of place.
They flutter from her eyelids like moths before the flame—
just the opening number in her makeup game.
As she smooths on her concealer, then powders over all,
she does not see me watching her out here in the hall.
Never does she hesitate. Brushes grow ever finer
as she patiently applies shadow and eye liner.
She does it all so expertly with such consistent flair,
then carefully begins to work to rearrange her hair.
A little mousse to set the curls, a little spray of mist
and she’s prepared a face that is ready to be kissed.
When she comes home, the hair is mussed, one eyelash is askew.
One eyelid seems to be of a slightly lighter hue.
Although her hairdo’s fallen, still her mood seems somewhat lighter.
Her lipstick gone, and yet somehow her color seems much brighter.
One little word transforms a girl to another realm.
Makes an unsure teenager the captain at the helm.
Just change “make up” to “make out” and her heart takes wing.
And woe to any parent who notices a thing!
Prompt words today were flair, hesitate, spray and extraneous.
Road Rage
Every time I lose control, I have cause to regret it.
I only hope that friend and foe in time will just forget it.
I try to hold myself in check before I go too far.
The only time this does not work is when I’m in a car!
I rave and rant at thoughtlessness. Bad drivers I revile.
I simply must use tongue and fist to communicate my bile.
I wish I had more self-control, that my response was blander,
but somehow selfish drivers just tend to up my dander!
I have an early appointment tomorrow so need to do my post early. The only prompt ready is Your Daily Word, so it is a single prompt today. The prompt word today is control.
Teenage Fashionista
She layers on her makeup, gussies up her hair,
then faces indecision over what she is to wear.
It is an epic battle, trying to decide
inside which current fashion her body will reside.
She asks no one’s opinion. She’d rather try and pile
garment after garment, not quite today’s best style,
on bed and chair and carpet, in crumpled little heaps
until she finds the outfit that she will wear for keeps.
There is no dearth of choices of every hue and kind,
which makes it even harder—this making up her mind.
Crop tops, skirts or Levis ripped in the right places
are surveyed in the mirror as she strides off her paces.
Lip poochings and selfies help to make the choice.
When she finally picks her costume, all of us rejoice.
Into the car and speeding to get to school by nine,
both of the kids delivered, back home I guzzle wine.
Raising a fashionista is something short of fun.
I swear I won’t go shopping with the younger one.
I’ll build her fascination with reptiles or bugs,
go hunting in swamp waters for snakes or frogs or slugs.
I won’t encourage fashion sense or darling little dresses.
I’ve had enough of posturing and daily costume messes.
Making mistakes in parenting is not part of the fun,
and for sure the next time, I’ll make a different one.
Prompt words today are help, dearth, epic and indecision.
Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on unsplash. Used with permission.
“In many countries, the phenomenon is so widespread that new terms have developed to describe it: bamboccioni [literally, big babies] in Italy, “hotel mama” in Germany, boomerang children in Australia, parasaito shinguru [single parasite] in Japan. These young men and women don’t leave home and don’t get married, because they only want to buy brand names and enjoy themselves and to live, as an ideology, at their parents’ expense. It’s nothing less than a pandemic.” https://www.haaretz.com/.premium-new-syndrome-grown-up-kids-who-stay-home-1.5336944
Boomerang Boy
If more interest charges he wishes to defray,
he needs to find a paying job without further delay.
He should at once take heed of my excellent advice
and give up on his former full-time job of shooting dice.
He might become a rose vendor, a troubadour or chef
or become the famous author of a roman a clef.
if only he would get a job, his parents would rejoice,
but, alas, sheer laziness is his career of choice,
Duck Tale
He sits there on his little tail
maintaining he does not inhale,
but every time he deigns to speak
the smoke that issues from his beak
is not all that he’s taken in.
We tell him it’s a double sin
to fill his lungs with acrid smoke
and then to lie to all the folk.
We all know Little Duck’s too young
to mess with trachea and lung.
Those who take gambles respiratory
wind up with a tragic story.
But no duck I have ever known
will listen to his parents’ drone.
We take his privileges away,
but still he chooses to puff away.
We hide his fags and hide his lighter,
now and then pull an all-nighter
making sure he doesn’t smoke,
but once we’re gone, he takes a toke.
No matter what our perturbation,
we cannot stem his inhalation!
(If you’re not familiar with Little Duck, HERE is some backstory.)
The prompt word today is inhale.
Sinning
Out here at my grandpa’s farm, there isn’t any sinning.
We’re as innocent as Eve way back at the beginning
before original sin was born, decreed by the Almighty
and Eve was forced to don a fig leaf in lieu of a nightie.
As we kneel to milk the cows, we also kneel in prayer,
peeling all our sins away, layer after layer.
But I prefer to say Eve’s sin was merely hers alone.
I should get to do the sin for which I must atone!
Confessions of Hatface
My father calls me hatface because of my addiction
for wearing things upon my head because of my conviction
that I look prettier in hats or hairdos most original
to make me look exotic––French or Greek or aboriginal.
I wear my cat under my arm, my socks upon my head.
Rather than be ordinary, I’d rather be dead.
Sometimes I walk my rabbit. When he walks on his hind feet,
for sure, we’ve the attention of everyone we meet.
My rabbit sheds his rabbit skin and wears a shirt instead,
and me? I change my head socks and put bows upon my head.
Our skin is very pliable. It stretches like Band-aids,
so Sis and I just pull it up in pretty little braids.
In sunlight, flowers surprise me by sprouting from my head.
I never know what to expect when rising from my bed.
I have two patron blackbirds perched one upon each shoulder.
They’d be perching on my head if they were any bolder.
A bluebird doubles as my kite, the string held in its mouth.
Sometimes he flies me east or west, and sometimes we fly south.
I’m a very special girl. I’m not at all predictable––
a miracle that Jackie Hurlbert found me this depictable!
Thanks to Charmed Chaos for thinking up this picture prompt for dVerse Poets and to jackie Hurlbert for letting her use her beautiful paintings as prompts. We were to choose one to write about, but I chose all of them. Click on her name to see more of her work.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 